ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline Volume 8, Number 110 October 28, 1999 In this issue: URGENT ACTION ALERT: Nov. 1 Vote on Problem Database Bill Looms Again: Calls and Letters Needed IMMEDIATELY to Fight Passage of H.R. 354 URGENT ACTION NEEDED: A vote could happen as early as Monday, November 1 on the problem database bill, H.R. 354. It is critically important that you contact your Representatives in the House AS SOON AS POSSIBLE and ask them again to pressure House leadership to stop or postpone a vote on H.R. 354. If it should come to the floor for a vote, Representatives should be asked to vote AGAINST H.R. 354. Emphasize that the library and broader user community DOES NOT support H.R. 354, nor do recent changes to the bill meet our concerns. The American public stands to lose basic, long standing public access to facts. H.R. 354 includes an inadequate exemption for education and research activities that is far too narrow; recent improvements to the bill are not adequate. For more information, see http://www.databasedata.org. Even if you have already contacted your representative, please contact him/her again. The sample letter below developed by a library coalition may be used, or you may send a letter using the ALA Legislative Action Center at http://congress.nw.dc.us/ala/elecmail.html . For further information or to share your letter and the responses you receive from your representatives, please contact Miriam Nisbet or Lynne Bradley at the ALA Washington Office at 1-800-941-8478 or e-mail mnisbet@alawash.org or lbradley@alawash.org . BACKGROUND: While the October 8 ALAWON (v8, n103) generated many letters and phone calls to representatives and helped delay the vote by two weeks, proponents of H.R. 354 and opponents to our preferred H.R. 1858 have continued their active assault. The October 25 Roll Call, a Capitol Hill daily newspaper, contained a full page ad, sponsored by the National Association of Realtors, calling all representatives to support H.R. 354, Rep. Coble's database bill, and to "Stop Unethical Internet Pirates." A vote on H.R. 354 is expected early next week. Unfortunately, the alternative bill that ALA and its allies support, H.R. 1858, the Consumer and Investor Access to Information Act, sponsored by Rep. Tom Bliley (R-VA) is not scheduled for a House vote at this time. In addition to a broad coalition of education and library groups supporting H.R. 1858, this bill is also supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and many business interests. While cosponsors are still being sought for this bill, the current grassroots effort is targeting DEFEAT of H.R. 354. To stop this vote, we must emphasize the negatives inherent to H.R. 354. SOME OF THE PROBLEMS WITH H.R. 354: H.R. 354 is a far-reaching, overly broad piece of legislation that would: -- for the first time, protect facts and would allow a producer or publisher unprecedented control over uses of information including downstream, transformative use of facts and government-produced data contained in the database. -- protect factual information; and -- provide for, in effect, perpetual protection of a collection, at least for dynamic compilations in electronic form, despite the addition of language that seeks to remedy this problem. SAMPLE LETTER AGAINST H.R. 354 TO SEND TO REPRESENTATIVES: Dear Representative ____________________: On behalf of [insert name of your library or organization], I am writing to ask for you to vote AGAINST H.R. 354, the Collections of Information Antipiracy Act. H.R. 354 provides overly broad protection for a "collection of information" that would reduce the public's access to information and unreasonably burden scientific research, scholarship, and education. Data and information are the foundation of all research and education activities. Members of the library and education communities rely on access to information in all aspects of teaching and research including the preservation of our cultural and scientific heritage. Such access is integral to the success of the U.S. educational system and to our leadership in the global economy. For over 200 years, the information policy of this country has protected creativity not factual information. This policy has served us extremely well and allowed libraries and educational institutions and the constituencies they serve to flourish. H.R. 354, the Collections of Information Antipiracy Act will, for the first time, protect facts and would allow a producer or publisher unprecedented control over the uses of information including downstream, transformative use of facts and government works in the collection. There is a preferred alternative bill, H.R. 1858, the Consumer and Investor Access to Information Act of 1999 which we understand is not being considered at this time. While voting AGAINST H.R. 354, we ask you to consider H.R. 1858 which would continue the tradition of permitting the use of facts, information in the public domain, while still affording limited new protections to database producers necessitated by digital technology. We ask you to vote AGAINST H.R. 354. Please let me know if there is additional information that I can provide concerning H.R. 354 or its preferred alternative, H.R. 1858. Sincerely, ****** ALAWON (ISSN 1069-7799) is a free, irregular publication of the American Library Association Washington Office. All materials subject to copyright by the American Library Association may be reprinted or redistributed for noncommercial purposes with appropriate credits. To subscribe to ALAWON, send the message: subscribe ala-wo [your_firstname] [your_lastname] to listproc@ala.org or go to http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon. To unsubscribe to ALAWON, send the message: unsubscribe ala-wo to listproc@ala.org or go to http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon. ALAWON archives at http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon. ALA Washington Office, 1301 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Suite 403, Washington, D.C. 20004-1701; phone: 202.628.8410 or 800.941.8478 toll-free; fax: 202.628.8419; e-mail: alawash@alawash.org; Web site: http://www.ala.org/washoff. Editor: Lynne E. Bradley; Managing Editor: Deirdre Herman; Contributors: Sally Benson, Mary Costabile, Peter Kaplan, Carrie Russell, Emily Sheketoff, Saundra Shirley, Claudette Tennant and Rick Weingarten.